Retronauts - Retronauts Micro 050: Fester's Quest

Episode Date: October 31, 2016

If you lived through the NES era, the words "Fester's Quest" likely make you break into a cold sweat. (Sorry about that.) A few years before Raul Julia and Christopher Lloyd danced the Mamushka, kids of the '80s mostly knew The Addams Family via Sunsoft's 8-bit hit and its absolutely unforgiving difficulty. On this episode of Retronauts Micro, join Bob Mackey, Chris Antista, and Henry Gilbert as the crew works through their shared trauma, and uncovers the fascinating history of this odd little game. Be sure to visit our blog at Retronauts.com, and check out our partner site, USgamer, for more great stuff. And if you'd like to send a few bucks our way, head on over to our Patreon page!

Hello, everybody. Welcome to a super special spooky edition of Retronauts Micro. I say spooky because it's not actually scary. It's silly and spooky at the same time. I'm in the Lasertime Bedroom Studio. Who's here with me? Henry Gilbert, howdy-do. And who else?

Oh, Gomez-Antista. That's a fine Spanish-style mustache. You're going there, Chris. It's Henry. Henry. Yes. I bet it clicking my finger. By the snapping and, you know, the cover art and the title of this podcast, you probably realize we're talking about the Adams family, but more importantly, we're talking about Fester's Quest, which is the first, I believe, the first Adam's family game. Pre-movie, 2013, Chris and Brett and I, maybe Ray was there too.

We did a podcast about two LGN games, Friday the 13th, and Jaws. This is kind of a sequel. This is our Halloweenish episode. Festers Quest isn't scary, but it's kind of. of bad scary so I wanted to do an episode about this game because I've got problems with it it's just astonishing though it is it's really it's a really interesting I mean for as much as I don't enjoy playing it I find it a very interesting game to talk about and read about yeah I'm trying to find an analog for someone younger than me uh-huh kids that's like

if somebody made a game a PlayStation 4 game out of Family Matters and it's starred Carl Winslow that's funny I was gonna say family ties like that's this is this is this is nobody's favorite character is Uncle Fester Well you know what it's weird He would go on in two years after this game To be the center of the movie The center of the first movie Finding him in the first movie

Yeah but he was like the central character I think I guess so consider the play was plot based But the timing of it too is all off Because like it there wasn't a movie Yeah there wasn't a movie So it's just reruns of a 30 At that time 25 year old TV show

Yeah crazy and I'm on here primarily Because I don't love, I don't love, I was asking you what this game's legacy is, I played a little, I played it, I got frustrated, I put it down, and I never walked. That was weird. I don't need that in my life. But you were talking about how notorious it was. I am here to make up for Henry, you did a laser time with us recently about horror comedies. Not one fucking person mentioned Adams family, and I'm holding everybody responsible for that because that is one of the greatest horror comedies of all time. Yeah, I guess I just thought of it as a comedy. I do think the movie amped up the horror a lot more than the TV show. It's like the threat of death. was in the movie by people visiting their house and the TV show was just like silly like there's a thing under the stairs that could be the months we talked about it off mic but the movies were just sort of like I hate saying excellent world building

it's like if you could see somehow what you know how Oscar the Grouch just likes gross things and like I love to hate and like none of this makes sense and we can't see inside your trash can and what your world looks like but the Adams family lets you in not just a family but they have a party with grotesque monsters and people

and like what a cool thing And great production design. Yeah. Well, yeah, let's talk about the Adam's family, like, how it began. Yeah. I mean, it began when Uncle Fester farted. In case you don't know.

I mean, oh, geez. Uh, I got it. So, like, if you're young, you could think this was like a movie first in the early 90s, way, way long ago. But it actually started as a New Yorker cartoon back when New Yorker cartoons were funny, you know, back then. It started in 1938. Ran until 1988.

This was a one-panel cartoon. And there were 150 of these created by Charles Adams. before he died so over the course of 50 years 150 ran what is that like three per year so they weren't that prolific i think yeah but when you see them all in a book they are it's really impressive all bound together and they had no names though they were just adam's family like he made them yeah name of after himself and i think the most famous one you'll probably see reprinted is uh a movie theater full of crying people and uncle festers in the audience laughing like it's like that's the that's the joke it's like and speaking of new yorker cartoons and video games you guys see the

recent one with, well, do you guys see the one was Scorpion telling Hillary Clinton finish it? Yes, I was like, you're really reaching out to the kids 25 years ago, guys. They had a game last year, it's all good. Yes. The Addis family is actually just the family of weird sadists. We don't need to take it there. I was always a Munster's guy.

Oh, okay. I thought Adams all the way, baby. In hindsight, yes, but like, dude, they were all different monsters for real. So, to a child, the Munsters, this is the great Monsters, Adams family debate. So as a child, Monsters was more for kids, too. Like, because The dad in it is a kid.

He's basically like a big kid. And you do get to see all these different famous monsters in one show. And also, grandpa's a fun guy. Grandpa Monster. But as I grow older, I like the Adams family more because they're not a collection of monsters. They're just weirdo. It's more sophisticated in that. I think, like, obviously, the Monsters was drawing from Universal Monsters.

The Adams family was created in the 30s while they were happening, but maybe not directly in sports. just like a bunch of creepy weirdos are going to live together. One is vaguely like vampireish. We keep talking about that on Lasertimes and I love bringing up the Universal Monsters. I love them dearly. Check up my new Wolfman set.

But that when they were being made at Universal, they were still needed to be licensed because their books had not come into the public domain. So that's so like Charles Adams if he wanted to could not have used the likeness of Frankenstein or Bella Lagosie. Yes. Yeah, but

so I especially love like Sean Aston's father, John asked him. Oh, he's great. He's still alive, right? He is still like. He saw him in something. Let's not curse him by Mr. being alive on this podcast.

But I actually had another reason I really liked it because it was brought up recently by this person I follow on Twitter who writes a ton and she has a podcast to Merritt Kay is, and she did a whole thing looking at like dad. She did this series of podcasts about

like pop culture dad. and she did Gomez on one of them and part of it was re-watching a lot of old episodes of Adam Family and she was pleasly surprised by like how much stuff they got on TV then and like they are in a him and mortiss are any kind of kinky but

monogamous married relationship yeah like kissing up her arm and everything there was there was one line she pulled out from the 64 show which was her saying oh don't worry Gomez he couldn't hold a candle to you it'd be interesting for him to try though

he was getting off on that yes That's a kinky job That is pretty kinky on the 60s A kid show on the 60s So yeah the 60 TV show Which this game is based on I ran from 64 to 66 Only 64 episode

Do you think there'd be a lot more Monsters ran for 70s So I guess these things At a very short shelf life Like unlike the hillbilly Splosion of Green Acres Beverly Hillbillies Petico Junction

People could only handle So many monsters in the 60s Well I think those things Aren't initially But a lot of the Universal movies Weren't initially popular either but it's just the nature of television needing to fill air

is what brought the universal monsters back into the zeitgeist needing time to fill air on cable is what brought these old sitcoms that ran two seasons that the networks didn't even like gave them another life I am a naked night kid

every summer I would watch the full run of Andy Griffith show Homer Pyle, Beverly Hillbillies anything TV would show I would watch I became a man Adobe Gillis When they debuted Mary Tyler Moore I watched every episode

in a row like well I have to see every Mary Tyler Moore What else could you do with your time exactly. Am I going to hang out with friends or like have crushes on people in summer? No, I'm going to watch Mary Childer Moore. TV is the answer. So yes, that was

enough of a preamble. Just to introduce you what the Adams family is. We're talking about the game though, which was released in the USA in September of 1989. So before the movie? Before the movie. Two years before the movie. They weren't even capitalizing on like getting the TV show rights, being aware of the movie rights. No, but

the movie was in talks I think at this time because we'll get into that later. But obviously this game feel, I mean, if you play it, it feels a little bit older than an 89 game, but I think it's mostly known by the great spooky box art, which the comic artist, Casey Green, parodied with

his great book, Graveyard Quest. It's this picture of a fester with a spider crawling down his face. He's like cackling, and there's lightning striking the Adam's family mansion behind him. It's really iconic, really great. A stark use of the color, orangey yellow. It's just like a really ghoulish, like really ghoulish colors. It's very

like eye-catching. And from Sunsoft, the unsung maker of the license game, have made not just passable license games, maybe the greatest for the NES. This is definitely one of their lesser games. I mean, it feels like it's definitely based on Blastermaster,

the overhead shooting segments. Which, again, like, I love Blastermaster. Would I have known how to play Blastermaster if everybody in the recess yard wasn't reading Nintendo Powers voraciously and telling it's convoluted or impossible to figure out? It's a hard game. I think Blastmasters a hard game, but not

nearly as hard as this. I mean, Sunsoft made hard games. I feel like Remlins 2 is a very hard game, but they're both way better games. We'll get into why. Gremlins 2 is a great game. It's a beautiful game. It's just easy. You think it's easy? I just played it. Wow. Okay. So you can see it in my Lego Dimensions video. I disagree, sir. Quit cross-promoting during my podcast. Wait till the end. So the one redeeming feature of Fester's Quest is the music composed by Naoki Kodaka, who did every great Sunsoft soundtrack, Batman, Journey to Silius, Gremlins 2, Master Master. There's like four songs in this game, but they're all really, really good, including an amazing, like, salsa version of the Adams family song on the title screen. Yeah, it is great. And the ending, too, because they had to reuse it, I guess. There was no ending song. They couldn't afford it.

Like, it could only commission so many songs. And I recently dug up a ton of info on the production of this game. I got it from the kid Fenris website. I believe his name is Todd Seolik. He was one of my freelancers up one up for a while. But he interviewed the two American producers who worked at Sunsoft and got this game made. And it is a very strange. American-Japanese cross-production, which could explain some of its problems. Actually, it really does explain some of its problems. I mean, I guess, you know, they would need an American to tell them to make it. Exactly. Because, like, I would think there is no affection for Adam's family in Japan, right? There really isn't. The Japanese developers were confused, like, what is this you want us to make?

But to get into the information about this game, I'm not sure who directed it, but it is the brainchild of two American producers who still work in the gaming industry. One's name is Richard Robbins. The other's name is Michael Mendeheim. And they would later go on to create Mutant League football. So the creators of Festus Quest made Mutant League football. A much better game, the only football game I will probably play. And Menheim did the cover for a lot of other NES games.

I just searched. I couldn't find it, but I searched Menheim NES cover, and I found like Castlevania and Ninja Guidance. So he could have created those. I'm not sure if he did, but I couldn't find anything. Robbins worked on Desert Strike and Crew Ball, you know, the Motley Crew Pimball game. We all enjoy that.

Oh, my God. Menheim worked on Battle tanks and Armymen, so they continue working in the industry. so the idea for Fester's Quest came from a dream Robbins had about an idea called Uncle Fester's Playhouse so this came to him in a dream it was like the Adam's family was his muse

I guess and he created the idea of like the aliens abducting people to make it like have an objective in the game so it's like well we need something for Fester to do let's have him rescue people from aliens so Robbins had to basically court Charles Adams Widow play phone tag with her meet up with her in order to get approval of this idea and at the same

time she was talking with whoever made the movie about making the movie. So there's a lot of renewed interest in the Adams family because of baby boomers growing up. That's impressive too of just like going to the Adams estate. Like I would just imagine some

corporation owes it. You have to license it, but that's not how it was for everything. It's sort of like how Dr. Seuss's widow finally broke when they wanted to make the cat and hat movie and then it's like we're putting him on everything. Swifers, bags of chips, like lubricants, everything. It's one thing to do that, but then like, yep, I said

had no to everything, I had to wait until the right thing came along. Mike Myers' cat in the hat was the thing that swayed you. I prefer to think of that as the Linda Richmond Coffee Talk movie. She just turned to a furry at some point in her life because he's doing the same voice. That's right. Yeah. Doing jokes about hobos attacking. Don't listen to the fish.

She drinks. We'll repeat. Perfect soose. Perfect soos. So we went over the idea of where this game came from. So, you know, Charles Adams' widow was skeptical of the game. Sunsoft of Japan was skeptical as well. And this game had a very strange production process

where it was designed in part in America. So Robbins and Mannheim would create characters and maps and then they would fly over to Japan to communicate through a translator what they wanted to have done. So they were literally like drawing the maps for the game and giving them to the Blastermaster Master team

and telling them like this is how we want our game to be made. Do you think the Blaster Master Team knew is this beneath us? This is beneath us, right? I think the quality of this game shows that there was some friction or they were like kind of over this idea or they were just kind of forced into it

and didn't want to do it because the design decisions they made in this game are things that they normally wouldn't do like they're mistakes that shouldn't have been made by a team who has made much better things I think I mean it feels too like a team that maybe half-assed it a little or just like we gotta get this out

what are the negatives of Fester's Quest if we can get this out of the way. We'll get into that when we talk about the game I want to explain why this game is so bad or hard to play at least so Mannheim one of the co-designer said I was an avid game player back then but as far as game design

I didn't know what the hell I was doing I never designed a game and this baby was my first so you can blame your childhood trauma on him he goes on to say not having a password system was all my fault a complete and idiotic oversight the save system was overlooked by me because we had a debug code in our test builds

which allowed us to jump from level to level and save our progress whenever we wanted doesn't seem unbelievable now yes and it's like we never thought to put that into the design Doc, because the version we were playing had saves in it. So, like, why would we think of that to write it down on paper to give to Japan? I'm giving them the just, games are new. Games

are new-ish, but that Jesus Christ, it's not even one of those things like, ah, I can't believe we forgot that. We'll patch it in. We'll put it in the next pressing. Actually, they made it easier for Europe. Oh, did they? They could not back out of this difficulty problem. They, like, they had testers play, the tester said it was too

hard. So instead of delaying it, which Sunsoft did not want to do, their advertising campaign is like, this game, is going to kill you. This game is really hard. In fact, I'll play the commercial for it now. This is one tough video game.

Festus Quest is one tough video game with sinister maze, deadly traps, hideous monsters, and spooky graphics. But if you make just one mistake, you start all over again. Festus Quest, the video game from Sunsoft for the Nintendo Entertainment.

system, are you good enough? And the tagline is, this is one tough video game, and you aren't kidding because this game is really, really hard. One of the hardest games on the NAS that is not fundamentally broken. It's just extremely cruel. I wonder, too, if that was Japan saying, like, hey, we put in what the Americans told us to, they didn't want a safe system, then we won't do it. Yeah, not even, like, the formality of, like, a checkpoint is in this game.

Or horrible passwords. Exactly. Do that. Give me an 80 character password instead of starting over from the beginning every time. But one last thing. This game sold over 1 million copies in the United States. How is that possible? It was just this enigmatic thing and it had this reputation of being a hard game.

The cover was very iconic. It was like a cool idea with lots of items. I can't prove this. But one of the reasons I think this made it into a lot of libraries is that the NES was very hot at this time in this game. I think either launched or immediately became a little cheaper than most games. Maybe at like a 2999 standpoint. See, I never bought it, but I definitely rented it at least once because you see it on the shelf. You're like, I think these Adam's family characters are cool on those old black and white things I saw.

This guy seems neat. I'll do it. And, yeah. And, like, there are a lot of cool things in the game. But before we go on, I want to ask you guys, what is your experience with the game? As for me, like, it was one of those things where I was like, this game looks neat. I'll rent it. And I would try playing it over and over.

And I would never make it more than 15 minutes in for the problems we're going to talk about coming up here. So I just kind of bounced off this game over and over And it was only for this episode that I actually decided to go into it with safe states With a turbo controller and try to fight my way through it And that was still a failure but Chris like what was your experience with this game just real quick? I just remember playing it at other people's houses and by the time I actually got myself a copy No articulate epiphany just sort of like huh I don't need to do this

And I wish I spent more time with it I really did because it was one of those games I just assumed even at the time everybody would forget about until like it's utter ubiquity selling a million copies seems like insane i take it that was probably part for the course for your more popular nes s games though because it had an install base that was huge yeah well just as someone who like 20 years ago was way into buying retro games this was everywhere it's like if you had a collect a fledgling collection you could make this a part of it very easily because people returning it and drove god well the a nes yeah the nes had 90% of the market so a million for even a well marketed game can do it. I love looking at it like a version of the app store where I just on a lark downloaded two biker mice from Mars games because you can put anything on the app store. You know what, Chris, you have a point. I think this was design in part and maybe not intentionally, but a parent could see this in the store and be like, oh, Adam's family, this would be fun. Like my mom recommended me the spy versus spy game, which sucked because she liked Mad Magazine. I mean, in both of those cases, I rented them based on the cover art

from the pick and save and they both were yeah What does Bobby like better Adam's family are Gilligan's Island They both have NES games Gilligan's Island is slightly more manageable But I was also kind of a spoiled kid That so if my mom rented a game

And we didn't like it We were just like two days later We'd return it We weren't forced to be like This is what you're playing for a week I was screwed I got purchased two games a year And I was pretty stuck with them

Did you get to choose them? Yes usually Usually I did, unless you're my dad. I got you Jeopardy NPR edition. It's almost like reading. You suck, Dad. That's how you learned about Garrison Kuehler. All the hard facts about him.

So you said you did play this, Henry? Yeah, but not very much. Like, I knew it was way too hard, and I didn't want to play hard games, and I didn't love Adam's family enough. Yeah, I think that's where I was. The ones that were too hard for me, I'd still never beat but keep going back to

is if I loved the character enough, like the Game Boy Spider-Man games, They're horrendous. They're so bad. I would like to nominate the Super Nintendo's Rocky and Bullwinkle. It's one of the biggest pieces of shit in the goddamn universe. I played the hell out of it because I love those characters. And most Simpsons games.

Every Simpsons game. Every Simpsons game except for like two at this point. The Arcade and Virtual Springfield. So I did like academic level research on Festers Quest. I have a PhD in Festers quest after this. I spent so much time on this just for you guys and the listeners out there. Let's talk about the game itself. It's been 20 minutes.

not talk about the game itself. So this game opens with a great looking cut scene where Fester is moonbathing and a UFO comes and beams with all the people and he looks at the screen and his glasses drop down. It's really cute. Again, they have played the remix of the Adam's family song. It's great, yes.

Yellow was around, but they didn't license that song. But in the manual it explains that grandmamma put a protective spell on the Adams family so they wouldn't not get abducted. So the only humans you meet in this game are the Adams family who are all hiding away in houses. So this game is mostly going to be a lot of complaints, or this episode

rather. So if you like the game, I would turn this off immediately if you haven't already. But the flow of the game is really, you're above ground and about a third of the game is a sewer level. You transition from above ground to below ground to find these houses that have first person dungeons, which contain one of five bosses. Oh, God.

When I was watching a full playthrough of it before this, I was in shock like, wait, is this like a Shin-Makami Tense game or something? What's with this first-person inspiration? There's no combat. there's no enemies, there's no nothing, it's just navigation, although, yeah, go ahead. And it just looks so boring, like, it reminded me of, like, Google 13 as a kid,

except it was, like, at least that was more focused. And, and then you, and also just the way it draws in the stage, like, it's blaking so much, like it would give kids seizures. I guess maybe it was impressive in 1989, it's kind of hard to watch now, but it's just, like, one of the many weird ideas that are in this game, this feels like a very Japanese idea, because we see things like Google 13, the goonies, Dr. Jekyllis, Dr. Mr. Hyde have all these first person segments that just don't seem to belong very well. I mean, those games, in a lot of cases, were made by PC gaming nerds in Japan who loved

the first person exploration, PC American RPGs. Every game should be like this, right? This is real exploration. A little fester, though. I can't let it go. He is the most eddingmatic and iconic character, I think. I mean, he puts a damn light bulb in his mouth and he's got a blunderbuss. It's perfect.

I mean, this guy came to him in a dream, so it has. to have some kind of value. So we've been dancing around this and Chris brought it up and I shot him down immediately because I wanted to do the preamble, but let's get this out of the way. You take two hits before you die. And when you die, you go back to the beginning

of the game. Not a checkpoint, not your last door you exited, the beginning of the game. There's no fast travel. There's no checkpoints. You don't unlock shortcuts. Exactly what we went over because they did not, they thought they had saves in the game but the game was produced without saves.

Oh, that was just in our debug version. Shit, we should have put the saves in. So that's exactly why this game did not have saves and why it was advertised as being a hard game. Somebody at Sunsoft, passive-aggressively didn't tell them to put in that place. Someone on that team must have realized it needed it and didn't tell somebody. Or maybe it got lost in the mail. I mean, we are thinking of an age.

I'm thinking of inter-office communications from 8 million different channels. And this is back when they would write you a letter or maybe a phone. phone call, a very expensive long distance phone call. For this game, the reason why the development was so rushed, though, is because they had to literally fly to Japan every time they had, like, a meeting or new ideas. I guess that's what slowed it down. But, um, so, uh, Uncle Fester has two life points in his life bar. You can upgrade it to up four, but these are basically impossible to find unless you know

where they are. Like, one is behind a hidden wall in a first person dungeon that is not signaled at all. Another is behind, like, a piece of tiley if the walk behind that's not signaled at all. It's just like, this game is very, very cruel. The one merciful part of this game, though, is that this game is basically just about accumulating items to withstand the War of Attritionist committing against you. You get to keep all of your items when you die and continue.

And you upgrade your gun and your whip through different levels, and you get to keep those levels when you die. That's the nicest they can get on. Yeah. But ultimately... Can it be completed quickly? What's that? Can it be completed quickly?

Was that... No, this game has RPG-style grinding. Jesus. So here's the thing, Chris. Fester has a gun. It goes through one of eight levels of power. and each level has a different effect. Most of these effects are sine waves, a sine wave pattern,

which makes it impossible to hit enemies. And when you're in a sewer, you're in cramped corridors, so your gun just fires at the wall and cancels out. Unless you're standing on the exact right pixel you need be standing on. So the first part of the game is grind for 20 minutes, get the top level of the gun, now you can play the rest of the game,

because good luck fighting any bosses, good luck fighting the waves of enemies that are thrown at you. It is just like a monotonous, tedious slog. Yeah. And it does feel like it was paid out of space. spite. Yeah, it was famous for a time as like the first thing people would say is like, oh, this is a worst game ever. And then, you know, the Sean Babies of the world dug a lot deeper to find truly the worst games ever. But Fester's Quest was a widely known. It was a lot of people in

our generation's first pick of worst game. I think so. Just because of how much it sold, the way it was covered in magazines and stuff like that. So a lot of this game is simply, there's maybe like six enemies in the game, maybe five. It's just like you're walking down, straight streets or straight corridors and the game just throws enemy after enemy after enemy at you and they take so many hits in fact the instruction manual recommends you play with a turbo controller but even when I was playing with an emulator with turbo settings on I'm like it seriously is taking this long to kill a green frog like god help you run into a green frog you're going to be standing there for 20 seconds firing like projectile after projectile into that

thing and the bosses are even worse I'm getting really fired up the bosses are these horrible abominations that again a war of attrition they're essentially their AI put that in quotes their AI is designed to follow you as you walk around so you are kind of stuck directly in front of them as they go through one pattern every boss does one thing and fighting the bosses is just really putting up

with doing like doing the same pattern over and over and over again like dodging the same whip, dodging the same projectiles it is such a tedious war of attrition I am angry at Fester's Quest by the way I can't stand it Thank you. I'm sorry.

I'm going to be able to do. I'm going to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to do. I think. I'm a good. I'm a bit. I'm a...

...and... ...and... So I will say one good thing about this game is that there are some inspired things about it. A cool idea is that they have a lot of items like in Zelda and Metal Gear. You have a bulb that is essentially your torch in a dungeon. Cute. Another like RPG inspired thing that actually is like one of two things. that ties into the show itself.

Yes. A key which opens houses and first person mazes. A noose which summons lurch to kill all the enemies on the screen. Wow. Of vice scripts which cure status conditions which are the worst part of this game.

There's a certain enemy that if you shoot at them they will like have mosquitoes fly out. If you get hit with mosquito, Fester moves at half speed until you heal that condition. And he already moves incredibly slow as it is. Like you can barely dodge enemies as is. You can find medicine? Exactly.

Wow. It is really RPG-like in a strange way. But in a cruel way. A very cruel way. You can't gain levels, which is like, that should be part of this, if this is what you're doing. It's all the negatives of RPGs. I'd heard this was how Shigisato Itoy sold Earthbound or mother to Miyamoto,

because Miyamoto wasn't into RPGs. And Itoi said, well, what's good for people who aren't good at games, they like RPGs because the more you play, the easier it gets because you level up. And that idea... So when you take out the leveling up thing to RPGs, it doesn't even get easier from grinding. Yeah, it just gets more tedious.

You learn nothing except to hate the game itself. So, yeah, more items. We have the missiles, which are the best items in the game because they essentially lock onto an enemy and all fire at them, which is a good way to kill some bosses. In the gameplay, full play-through, I watch. That's how the guy beat the final boss. He just stood in the corner and just showed.

shot all of them. He found the one safe spot. For five minutes. It takes forever. Every boss takes forever and some of them have shields, which makes them even harder to hit. It's crazy. So more items. We have TNT, which are exactly like lynx bombs. We have potions that heal you. There's a very limited amount in the game. There's a finite amount in the game, I believe.

In an invisibility potion was essentially just there to help you fight bosses. Like, you're going to suck at this. There's no way to avoid getting hit. Down one of these, and you're like invincible for 10 seconds, and you'll be fine for that 10 seconds. But you better pop another one as soon as it ends. Because otherwise, you're screwed. So yeah, I mean, this game has a lot of bad ideas. One of them is, again, you need to

build up your whip and gun to max levels to do anything in this game. The problem is enemies, the vast amount of enemies that come at you, some of them drop power downs. The red gun and whip icons are power downs. So when an enemy, when you fire a bunch of enemies and take out a group of enemies, they all drop power ups and you see a power down. You have to wait for them all to disappear before you can move on. Otherwise, if you touch it, you'll power down and you'll go through that all again. So there's a lot of waiting in this game too. It's crazy. That takes the poison mushroom

thing from Super Mario Lost Levels and makes it in the entire game. I did just look up on a website I just discovered and want to plug it if Retro or Notts fans haven't heard of it. How Longto Beat.com a general consensus on how long certain games take to beat

and it says even if you're an LG as fuck this is going to take two hours to beat no matter what. two hours especially if you put in let's say one hour and 45 minutes and you die you just have to do it again it's two hours you had to do it again

I can't imagine if you die in the last boss getting kicked back to the beginning of the game having to go all the way walk walk all the way back to the last boss I'm mad I've never been done it it says even as a completionist it would take you an extra 45 minutes yeah Jesus Christ

so there are some professional things about this game like I think it looks okay it doesn't look that bad the music is again really good the problem is there's not a lot of variety environments you're either above ground or in the sewers and like a third of the game are in these awful may sewers where again if you have anything but the highest powered gun

you can't kill enemies in corridors they'll just run into you and kill you and this is where the game is at its cruelest like again sewer levels always suck and this is no different in fact this is like the epitome of sewer level hell I you'd wish to go back to Teenage Mutinyin Ninja for hell sewers please let me know when you want to talk

about elf. Well we'll talk about the elf game sooner or later but I'm almost done here. I mean, there's only so much to complain about in this game because it's only an hour-long game. But, like, I feel, like I said before, Sunsoft of Japan, their heart wasn't in it.

I feel like they didn't like being told what to do by Americans who were just like, this is popular, make it. I had a dream about it. Like, if a guy came to you and said, make my dream, it's like, your dream is weird and I don't even know what you're talking about.

Especially when you probably don't already trust outside executives to come in. Yeah. And I mean, these guys, they were Sunsoft of America's, like, dudes. And they, like, they helped write the Blastermaster's story.

I think one of them did maybe Robbins because it was called Metafite or something in Japan and there was no story about a frog jumping down a hole and by the way Blastermasters frogs

are in this game which is a weird connection. Why bother making a new spright? Yeah. So I just want to wrap up by saying like it doesn't really capture the show I mean the song is in it

Fester's in it but he could be anyone this game could be anything like it doesn't matter that it's him it's like these weird HR Geiger like spooky designs The designs of the enemies are cool

The bosses look really neat Like straight out of Blastermastermaster But there's only a few items that feel festery Like the vice grips and the light bulb And just like I guess his blunderbuss Which is a connection to the show I believe Like he threatened to shoot people with this blunderbuss Which I don't remember

Yeah, he saw a picture of it I was like oh I guess he did have that I feel like I'd seen him holding it But where did that thing get its name? Genevieve The blunderbust The blunderbuss? The blunderbuss is named Genevieve

And I discovered that today No I just meant the blunderbust in general Why is this called a blunderbuss? Is it a bad gun? Well, that's for my etymology podcast coming up next. We'll discover it then. Hey, look, I was right to ask. One of you probably has a stupid fact like that.

I mean, I'd rather spend, I would rather spend the two hours trying to beat this game just watching Adam's family or Adam's family values. I'm going to go, hot take. You ready for this? Go for it. There is only one good Adam's family game. Period. Pinball. Bob, you guessed correctly on the first try.

It's only the best pinball game ever, right? What about electric? yourself with Faster, come on I was disappointed when I found it it wasn't electrocution I was just gonna vibrate

What the hell Bullshit Electrocut me Come on I'm paying money To be zapped here people So yeah I mean like

I don't know I want to know From our of our listeners I feel like this is If you play this game It's sort of a shared trauma We have We talk about that

With the Ninja Turtles game I think this is far worse Like that game Is way more manageable Than this And I just feel like I just have nothing But pain

When I remember this game I wanted it to be good It's like Star Tropics where it's like this game has cool things in it but it's just inapproachable for me and I want to know at home if you're listening out there It's good but it's also hard not as hard as this though

But if you're listening at home Did you play this game? Did you beat it? If you beat this game legitimately I want to know I want to recruit you from my super soldier army Because I don't know how any human Could have done this. It's just crazy I mean this must this must have sold a lot of game genius

Oh oh dear yes and again If you watch a let's play All the lets players are quick saving and doing like turbo controllers too because they're like I don't got time for this shit either I'm a let's player yeah I mean well I would love to see a non-tool assisted Fester's Quest play through

I would love to see like that at awesome game Stunk quick or summer game Stunk quick I want to meet that man and find out what's going what's gone wrong with him in his life because something happened to devote yourself to Fester and closing thanks for listening folks I think I've said more than anyone has ever said about Fester's Quest in one lifetime

I wanted to dig as deep as I could thanks to Kid Femmerus again for that great interview, a lot of insight into this game, and really why it went wrong. Like the producer said, we didn't know what we were doing, and clearly Japan didn't give a crap about their idea. They wanted to go make Batman or something, which would be the next year. I think Batman the game was 90, right? Yeah, yeah. It was one year after the film, which was 89. Like, the golf of difference between Batman and Pester's Quest is like... Or even Grimman's too, which is a license game that's top down and it's kind of similar.

It's beautiful. It's amazing. Yeah. Well, if I may get to plugs early, I did want to say, if you like the soundtrack of this, our friend Brett Elston on his podcast, VG Empire. No, we didn't do that, but he did a tribute to the Batman Sunsoft game, so he talks a ton about that composer on

it. So yeah, thanks to that guy for doing the one good thing about this game. And better luck next time to the producers who went on to have a great career and I think they kickstarted Mutant League football or something they tried to. They kickstarted Mutant Football League. Oh, different. That is beautiful. Different idea, do not sue.

Please. So, yes, thank you so much. This has been Retronauts. I've been your host, Bob Mac. You can find me on Twitter. Where's the sound effect, Chris? You don't have it at the ready? Where's my computer?

I don't know. Dave takes it home now. Jeez. So, yes, you can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo, and you'll find this blog post at Retronauts.com where I'll have some interesting links for you to read and click on, including that interview. And you won't find this at U.S. Gamer because I don't work there anymore. I will be working at fandom.com.

Is that correct? Is that the name of the site? I forget. Okay, Henry shaking his head. So yes, that's my new workplace. I'll be there from November 1st on. So visit me there, read my content there. I'll be doing fun stuff.

It'll be a lot of fun. But from then on, you will find my blog post about my episodes on Retronauts.com. So please go there. Henry, where can we find you? Oh, wait, I just said it. The same place as you, fandom.com, powered by Wikia. But also, you can find me on Twitter at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G on Twitter. Sorry, I got to hit the same things every time.

It's anemic pentameter. Also, you can find all my hot takes on Twitter, of course. But also, I'm on the Talking Simpsons podcast every week with one Mr. Bob Mackey and Chris Antis. So this was the Talking Simpsons for a year. Wow. Wow. Mr. But also, I just did an episode of Laser Time as well, and I'm on all those things.

Which are brought to you by patreon.com slash Lasertime, right, Chris? Yes, yes. We are almost 100% listener-supported. We just did a show about, we did a thing about horror by the numbers. We tried to figure out what is the most successful horror franchise, who's had the most movies, and who has the highest body count? The answer is usually Jason, except for, you want it more. You will not believe how high the, I don't want to ruin it.

The Exorcist suggested for Inflation is not only makes it the highest grossing horror movie ever, it makes it the highest grossing franchise ever. Wow. Purely based on the strength of the first film. The whole world saw that film. That's a spoof. Booky facts from the devil. I love, I don't know, I was very proud.

But we also do another one on horror comedies. Like, I did realize, oh, those are the horror movies I actually like. If this is an authentic home invasion movie, I don't care as much as if you're a priest, roundhouse kicking a zombie and dead alive, or gremlins or ghostbusters. People Dead, too, is my favorite horror comedy. I'm in the middle of Ash versus Evil Dead, and it is pure joy. I need to watch that. It is pure joy, Bobby.

And I forgot to mention, we have a Patreon, too, which is why you're listening to this episode. these episodes are a Patreon goal that we hit the off week episodes so I hope you're enjoying this if you want to give to our Patreon go to patreon.com plus Retronauts that pays for our entire show we cannot do it without your Patreon money and just one dollar a month could do a lot for us so please if you can give us a buck a month it will really appreciate it wait it would really appreciate it because it would really appreciate it there we go so yes we'll see you next time with a brand new full-length episode of Retronauts later folks Thank you.

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